Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I'm Konstantinos, your course call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the HELLENiQ ENERGY Holdings conference call and live webcast to present and discuss the Q4 and full year 2022 financial results. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Andreas Shiamishis, CEO. Mr. Georgios Alexopoulos, General Manager, Group Strategic Planning and New Activities. Mr. Vasilis Tsaitas, Group CFO, Mr. Dinos Panas, General Manager, Oil Supply and Sales, and Mr. Nikos Katsenos, Head of Investor Relations. Gentlemen, you may now proceed.
Good afternoon. Thank you very much for taking the time to attend our full year, Q4 and full year result presentation. I would like to apologize upfront for the choice of the day and the time. Unfortunately, the previously scheduled date was conflicting with another event that we could not control. Hence, we decided to push it back to Friday. Thank you very much for taking the time to be with us today. We will try and make it an easy process given that we have a lot of news to share, but all of them are good news, and hopefully, they will not be surprises for you. Without further ado, we're going to page 4 of our presentation.
We have the full year key highlights. Positive developments on all fronts. First of all, starting with the basics, the management and the handling of an energy crisis during most of the year, which has a number of repercussions on our business. The obvious one was the switch away from Russian crudes and products early on in the year. Something which we were not obliged to do, but we decided to do as a company. We were able to successfully switch away from those types of crudes and products, even though there was a competitive disadvantage given the pricing of Russian origin crudes.
However, we managed to switch away, as I said, and also to be able to handle the increased demand, mainly in the domestic market as a result of a lot of the units switching away from natural gas and moving back into diesel. That is something which we helped the local economy, plus other economies where we are present in the Balkans to manage the impact of the supply chain shock on energy. In terms of performance, I think we Well, I don't think, I know that we are reporting the best performance on record for the group. I am sure this is not gonna be the best that will ever come out of our group.
There will be even better results, but it may not be the case for a few years still. It has been an outstanding year in terms of numbers. Operations-wise, we did very well, despite the fact that during the year we had to struggle with schedules and a couple of unscheduled shutdowns as a result of power cuts that we suffered early in the year. All in all, a very good performance. That's the same for our marketing and other businesses as well, where we have seen record performance from our international portfolio, which is effectively complementing a very strong performance from our core Supply and Trading team.
In addition to that, we have the new businesses kicking in with renewables delivering the sort of EBITDA for the year at a reasonable level, reasonable enough to be able to report it as a separate unit. The close to EUR 30 million number is effectively representing a close to EUR 50 million run rate, about EUR 47 to 50 million EBITDA of run rate. Again, we have a very positive performer there. As a result of that and a stronger balance sheet, we have decided to propose to the AGM a dividend of EUR 0.50 per share, which in total brings it to EUR 1.15 for the year.
In terms of strategy, we have worked hard on our Vision 2025 agenda, completing all of the priorities that we set for this year. In fact, in some cases, actually even overshooting those targets. We are quite pleased to say that we are extending those targets going into 2023, 2024 into an even more aggressive set of numbers for our transformational efforts. In addition to that, we had two business transactions which were completed during the year. The first one has to do with the monetization of DEPA, which brought to the group about EUR 270 million, 50% of it was distributed.
At the same time, the achievement of an agreement with ExxonMobil, which allowed us to proceed with the seismic work in the area of Crete, of southwest Crete, the 2 blocks there. At the same time, we accelerated our own 2D and 3D seismic work in the Ionian blocks, where we have 2 blocks on our own, and we share 1 block with Energean. All in all, we have a portfolio of offshore prospects which have been, if you will, have been through the seismic works. I hesitated there because the Crescent blocks have not had a 3D campaign run, but it was quite a dense 2D campaign.
Effectively, we are in a position where we could see a decision for an exploratory well in the next 18 to 24 months. On top of the crisis management, the strategic initiatives development, the transformational plan, the very strong results, we are also quite pleased that we have been able to support society in a number of ways. Mitigate the impact of the energy crisis for some of our more vulnerable groups, both in Greece and in other countries. We had targeted plans on under our CSR campaign for children's hospitals, for families with more than 4 kids. We have tried to help in a number of ways.
At the end of the day, including the solidarity contribution, the group has about half a billion EUR of taxes and contribution that will be paid to the government to finance their own plans. I will not go through the four quarter results highlights, given that we've covered the full year. As you can see, we have effectively the developments that relate to the quarter. Going to page 6, we have our set of numbers, an adjusted EBITDA of EUR 1.6 billion. The reported number is over EUR 1.7 billion. In fact, had it not been for the price downturn in the end of the year, we would be looking at something which close to EUR 2 billion EBITDA.
I remind everybody that this does not include our power and gas associates, given that they are consolidated on a net income basis on an equity basis. EUR 1.6 of adjusted EBITDA and just over EUR 1 billion of clean net income. Effectively, what we have in net income, in the adjusted net income, is the stripping out of the inventory effect, the solidarity contribution, and the impact of the DEPA Infrastructure disposal, which considers to be one of our non-recurring or predictable items. In terms of balance sheets, just under EUR 5 billion, EUR 4.7 billion of capital employed. Net debt roughly at the same level as last year, given that we have invested a significant amount in the development of our renewables portfolio.
A CapEx of just over EUR half a billion. As I said, it includes the not only the maintenance CapEx, but also the acquisition of the head office building, which was under a lease. It's a conversion of lease to assets, but it is reported as CapEx, as well as the renewables growth. Very quickly through Vision 2025 objectives and what we have done. As I mentioned, we have very good progress on all of the fronts that we communicated. Starting from the top, we have an environmental footprint improvement plan in place, which will of course take time to materialize.
Because if you're looking at Scope 1, it's about industrial emissions. That requires investments and time to plan, permit, and build the new units, which will include the efficiencies on energy and CO2 emissions. We also have started working on a Scope 3 reduction strategy, which is even more relevant and important for the long term. In terms of our capital allocation and portfolio. Quite aggressively in renewables. We are in fact the number one producer of energy from photovoltaics. Clearly not the biggest in renewables overall, given that we have a relatively smaller footprint in wind. We are growing, we have proven that we have aspirations, and we are putting our money where our mouth is, and developing quite aggressively there.
However, our core business is even more important. Planning for the future is one thing, but making sure that we maintain and extract value from our core business is even more important. You can see here a number of initiatives which leads towards optimization and value extraction. At the same time, a transition to a cleaner asset base, and a more fit for purpose for the future asset portfolio. In terms of portfolio, I mentioned the exploration and production developments, as well as the DEPA Infrastructure monetization. On governance, on corporate governance and the structure, we've covered this in previous quarters. The latest development in the end of the year in September, was the rebranding of the group.
Since then, we have visited all countries that we operate in, presented to our staff and our colleagues. It is a rebranding which is better suited for our current position and our future plans. Very quickly before I pass you on to Dinos Panas to cover the industry environment. A few words about the digital transformation progress. It's a plan that started a couple of years ago, and now it's in full swing. The idea here is to be able to extract value from our operations and assets. It is quite a material value that we are targeting. More importantly, it has to do with improving the way we operate, making ourselves more agile and more responsive to changes in the market.
At the same time, increase the quality of managing the performance of our assets from a safety, environmental performance, and profitability point of view. Also to become closer to the market with actions and initiatives that put the consumer at the center of our retail operations. Of course, looking into the back office and our operating model as a group to make it more efficient. It's a very aggressive plan. We've actually set up a dedicated company which will cater for all of our group IT services and innovation in terms of digital technology. So far, we have seen the benefit of this on a number of fronts.
That brings me to the end of the introduction, and I would ask Dinos to walk us through the industry, and then Vasilis through the financials of the business.
Okay. Thank you, Andrea. Good afternoon to everybody. Going to page 11, we see the well-known numbers about how the crude and foreign exchange went during the period. We had an average of $101 per barrel in 2022, something like 14% higher than the previous year. If you look at on euro terms, the increase was 61% due to the strong dollar. On page 12, you can see the product cracks. Quite strong diesel cracks. Of course, same goes for gasoil and jet, all the middle distillates were quite strong. Gasoline at $17 per barrel. naphtha, quite weak the last year. It has been improving recently.
Yesterday it was -6 compared to the -20 you see there. HFO is -29, currently run at -25. The material benchmark margins for the quarter, they were the second best of the year, with $12 per barrel in... For cracking margins for the FCC, and $16 per barrel for the hydrocracking. We currently run a little bit higher than the full year of 2022 year to date in 2023. On page 13, energy prices. You all know that the natural gas prices are much lower than what shows here, at the end of the year. It's a bit higher than EUR 50 now. That the CO2 prices are currently around EUR 94 to 95 per metric ton.
That's the key elements here. A few, two slides more on the domestic demand on page 14. For the Q2, you'll see that we were 4% higher than 2019 and 3% higher than 2021. Although this was mainly driven by the big demand in heating gasoil. As you can see that, compared to the previous year, gasoline and diesel were -5% and the other products were +4%. Aviation demand has recovered higher than 2019 and 14% higher than the previous year. Bunkers and aviation's 7% lower than the Q4 of 2021. Finally, on page 15, the full year numbers.
You can see that compared to the previous year, we are +6% and quite close to where we were in 2019 in all products. Aviation demand is higher than it was in 2019. A big increase quarter-over-quarter. Finally, the bunkers demand was 6% higher than it was in 2021. That concludes my section, and I will pass it to Vasilis for the group results overview. Thank you.
Thank you, Dino. Good afternoon to all of you listening to our results conference today and many thanks. Moving on to discuss a little bit more in detail our results. On page 17, the various analysis of the Q4 versus the similar quarter last year. The main driver, as we discussed before, was the very positive refining environment with benchmark margins significantly higher versus a year ago. The strong dollar versus the euro close to parity. Our performance has also improved. The main elements have been crude selection and the gasoil switch, as well as improved performance on the S&T side in all our markets.
That was partially offset by the impact of the turnaround of the full turnaround that took place in Thessaloniki in the beginning of the quarter. Our weaker performance in marketing that we will discuss further on. The de-basing of our RES business with EUR 8 million additional profitability. Excluding the solidarity contribution, all the initiatives that we have undertaken to relieve the impact of the energy crisis to the community, that was just over EUR 30 million, mostly in the form of discounts in heating gasoil.
Our seismic campaign in the upstream business, both on the areas, on the blocks that we operate as well as those that we participate together with our partners, all in, took us to an adjusted EBITDA of EUR 465 million for the quarter. The full year picture is not much different. Again, main drivers being the very good environment, obviously with the margins and the effects, partially offset by the impact of the increase in CO2 pricing, the main components of our variable costs. In terms of our operations, again, the flexibility of our refineries, the crude, the selection optimization, the export contribution, all those have led to a significant uplift on our performance.
On the flip side, a heavy maintenance season at our refineries. All our three refineries have undertaken maintenance during 2022. Improved performance in marketing, driven by the aviation business recovery in Greece and improved performance in our international subsidiaries. The RES business, a multiple of what it had delivered last year, given the significant increase in the operating capacity. The other items in terms of the discounts in the upstream business, leading us to EUR 1.6 billion of adjusted EBITDA for the full year.
In terms of our funding, we have concluded the refinancing of EUR 900 million facilities that were maturing in the Q4, plus an additional EUR 300 million that were maturing later this year and the year after. All in EUR 1.2 billion in total of facilities that have been successfully refinanced banking facilities with improved terms, as well as a significantly lower credit spread. We given the cash flow generation of the year, we have been able to repay bank debt, our total capacity headroom stands currently at close to a EUR 1 billion. That strengthens even more our financial position and balance sheet.
On the flip side, we do have high benchmark rates, high Euribor rates that have started affecting us in the Q4 and will be having a negative impact in 2023 as well. On page 20, looking at our CapEx over the last couple of years, we have significantly increased our growth CapEx, which is almost entirely EU Taxonomy aligned as it's directed principally towards renewable energy. Our maintenance CapEx reflects the maintenance, the turnaround schedule at our refineries. For 2022, we have in addition our other CapEx, which mainly reflects the acquisition of our head office building.
On the bottom graph, effectively, you can see the gradual reallocation of our capital towards renewable energy that is gradually shifting our asset base. This is a gradual process, obviously, and it will take time, but shows the direction of our capital expenditures. Moving on to the business unit performance, starting with refining on page 23. We discussed before the main drivers of the very good environment as well as the very good operational performance. The turnover given the very high Euro terms commodity price and total crude products that we discussed before led to the highest turnover in our history.
The CapEx reflects the maintenance schedule, the very good environment leads to very strong benchmark as well as realized margins for both the quarter and the full year. In page 24, the main driver of the production levels and the yields is the turnaround of Thessaloniki Refinery, as well as the very good performance of Elefsina that came out of the full turnarounds after the Q2. On page 25, effectively, the lower production at Thessaloniki led to a smaller reduction in sales versus the similar quarter of last year. In the Greek market, we see the increase in demand as well as the market share gains in most products. Exports remain strong.
It's the highest export reading for the year, the highest quarterly export reading for the year in the Q1. Looking a little bit more in our export portfolio, as you can see, exports have been consistently above 60%. Up to 60% of our production over the last few years. The portfolio is well diversified in terms of destinations, mostly in the Med, but also east of Suez Canal. Our main products is our middle distillate and gasoline, so high value products for our exports. On page 27, our realized margin has kept at very high levels with overperformance exceeding $10 per barrel.
This is driven, as we mentioned before, by the flexibility of our refineries that have almost eliminated natural gas utilization as a feed, given the significant disparity in the relative pricing between oil products and natural gas. We took advantage of that. The crude selection and our ability to take for our refineries what makes more sense in terms of pricing, as well as the contribution of all our markets on the trading and sales side. Moving on to our petrochemicals business. Effectively, the Q4, equally like the Q3, we've seen very weak margins, they're close to record lows.
As a result of that, we finished the year with EUR 74 million of adjusted EBITDA, significantly lower than the record high of 2021, where if we remind you that we had the highest benchmark margins in on record for the last several years. In terms of our fuels marketing business, if we look at the full year, this is primarily driven by the recovery of the aviation business with volumes exceeding 2019 levels. In the Q4, despite the increase in sales, mainly due to heating gasoil contribution, the impact of inventory losses as prices were weaker quarter-on-quarter.
We remind you that due to materiality, we don't strip out inventory effect in marketing, whether it's gain or losses. The high transportation and storage cost in combination with the regulatory margin cuts led to a negative adjusted EBITDA for the quarter. International marketing, very good performance for the year. It's one of the best in the history of the group, with all our markets increasing contribution to and delivering very strong operational performance.
On that note, I'll pass you on to George Alexopoulos that will discuss our renewables and gas and power businesses. George.
Thank you, Vassili. Good afternoon, everybody. A strong quarter for the renewables business. EUR 9 million EBITDA, and that brings us to EUR 29 million for the year. Our current portfolio under development currently exceeds 2.5 gigawatts. The operation of our renewables business contributed to a reduction of CO2 emissions in excess of 200,000 tons for the year. Turning to page 36, ELPEDISON. Strong performance for ELPEDISON for the quarter and the year. Main drivers being energy management and gas trading. EBITDA for the year, EUR 181 and 38 million for the quarter. On DEPA, as you know, we have completed the sale of DEPA Infrastructure.
Now, we are holding 35% in each of DEPA Commercial and DEPA International Projects. We saw a lower contribution from DEPA Commercial in the quarter and consequently, for the entire year. The main reasons being, inventory losses on the strategic reserves required to be held by DEPA and also, weaker margins. The tender for DEPA Commercial, as you know, remains suspended. With that, I think we conclude the presentation.
Thank you very much, George. I don't think there is any reason to go through the detailed financial result pages. You will have the chance to go through them. At this point in time, we will pause, and take any questions or comments you may have. Thank you.
The first question is from the line of Nikos Athanasiou with Eurobank Equities. Please go ahead.
Hello, good afternoon, congratulations on the impressive set of 2022 results. I have a few questions, if you don't mind. It's not on the refining segment. It's on all of the other segments. First and foremost, regarding the marketing. The cap on the margin that was implemented last year, is this still in effect? When will this be amended or? What effect would that have on the company's EBITDA if it were not to exist? Secondly, regarding the renewable segment, could you tell us how much of the pipeline has grid connection terms?
thirdly, I would like a further comment on the Petrochemicals and your view on whether the 2023 will be better or the margins will continue to drop at record low levels. Thank you very much.
Okay, Nikos, thank you very much. Indeed, you're covering everything else other than refining, supply and trading. On marketing, you're absolutely right. There is a cap on margins, which was a continuation of the COVID days. This, as things stand, will be in place until June. We don't know what's gonna happen from tomorrow onwards, to be honest. Until June, we expect to have it in place. There is an impact, and that is probably anything between EUR 5 million and EUR 10 million. I don't wanna quantify it and be more specific on that. For retail, it is a very material number. Once this gets lifted, we should expect to see an improvement.
Obviously, when you have these market distortions, because it is a distortion, any way you look at it takes some time for it to sort of go back to normality. On the pipeline, I understand it was about how much of our pipeline has connection terms. I will ask George to cover that.
Yeah. Look, we have about 600, 700 megawatts with applications for connection terms, and we expect a significant part of that to get connection terms based on the provisions of the recent ministerial decision. As a result of that, and given other projects we are currently considering, we believe that we can increase our installed capacity in the next 12 to 18 months to about 600 megawatts.
Okay. Moving on to petchems, Dinos, do you wanna take the
Yes, yes.
Please.
Good evening, Nikos. Petrochemicals margins continue to be weak in 2023. Also, you know, Europe is fundamentally very short in polypropylene. We do not see the strong demand as we used to see in 2021. We also have a situation with Turkey which is a big consumer of polypropylene. I would say, I would expect to see recovery, if any, following the Q2 of the year.
We would welcome such a recovery as long as it comes from the top line and rather than eating into the propylene, into the refining margin.
Correct.
Okay.
Mr. Athanasiou, have you finished with your questions?
Yes. Thank you very much for your answers.
The next question is from the line of G eorge Livanis with EUROXX Securities. Please go ahead.
Yes, hello. Thank you for the presentation. I've got a question, mainly on working capital. If Vasilis could explain a bit, what happened during the Q4, why was it weak? Consequently, why was free cash flow weaker than what we would normally expect? Thank you.
Thank you, George. The main drivers for the cash flow generation in the Q4 have been a small working capital bit due to higher inventory volumes that should revert to normal in the Q1. The other has been the purchase of the entire CO2 deficit for the year, which is reflected on the movement in our intangibles.
Okay. Understood. Thank you. If I can go back to Dinos on refining. We've seen an improvement lately in gasoline cracks and a weakening in diesel cracks. What is your view for, I don't know, the next couple of months? Thank you.
Most probably is gonna go stronger as we go back to better weather. We have not seen yet the impact that all the analysts on the market were referring to following the ban of the diesel products from Russia on February 5th. Overall inventories are currently low, but diesel, you know, is not that strong as it was, George. Gasoline, I think, my view is that we're gonna continues to see strong cracks for the next few months. And diesel, it's... I cannot, let's say something definitely.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Nick Linnane with Sefton Place Fund. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. I had a couple around diesel specifically. Firstly, are you seeing in the Turkish market, that you now face more competition from Russian diesel? If Russian diesel is being shut out of EU, that Turkey can still take it. I mean, do you see yourself having to compete there with discounted Russian diesel? Or is that at least so far not happening?
Well, I guess, we are seeing flows from Russia to Turkey both for straight run and for diesel. We're seeing bigger flows now in 2023 compared to the previous year. There will be increased competition from that end.
Okay. Just a sort of broader question about the diesel market. I guess a lot of people had expected with the EU ban on Russian diesel coming into effect that that would push up the prices of diesel in Europe as Europe had to pull in diesel from further away. Clearly that hasn't happened so far. What's your understanding of why that is? Is that just because some inventories were built up ahead of the ban, and those inventories need to run down? Do you have any transparency on the extent to which that's currently happening or is it just unclear to you?
Well, it's the common thing. I mean, forecasts go wrong, then you need to understand why they went wrong. I mean, everybody was expecting that it would go higher. What analysts are saying is that there were some inventories built up with cheap Russian crude before the ban, and that is affecting, let's say, the current months. If you look at the inventories overall in Europe, they're a little bit lower than the.
Average of the five, last month, last years. Of course now we're getting out of winter. It's not an easy, let's say, situation to comment on.
Okay, thanks. Thanks for taking my questions.
There are no further audio questions. I will now pass the floor to Mr. Katsenos to accommodate any written questions from the webcast participants. Mr. Katsenos, please proceed.
Thank you, operator. We have a question from Jonathan Lamb from Wood & Company. Who asked, the tax burden was big in the quarter. What are your estimates for 2023?
Thank you, Nikos. Thank you, Jonathan, for the question. Effectively, the tax charge for the quarter was driven by the provision for the EU solidarity contribution. That, based on the law that passed in December, we made a provision of EUR 304 million. According to the law, this is in line with the EU regulation, obviously. 2022 profits are subject to the solidarity contribution. We do expect from the Q1 the tax charge to return back to normal based on the actual corporate tax rate.
Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference over to management for any closing statements. Thank you. Apologies. We do have a follow-up question from our audio participant. It's a follow-up from Linn ane Nick with Sefton Place Fund. Please go ahead.
So just a follow-up on the previous call. I had a question about tax. Under the current rules, is there any solidarity contribution payable in 2023 or on 2023 profits? If so, how would that be different to 2022? Would you kind of provide for that quarter by quarter or how would you treat it?
Hi, Nick. Thanks for the follow-up. Effectively, as we mentioned before, the profits of 2022 are subject to the solidarity contribution. The provision in Q4 covers the entire profitability of 2022. This will be finalized with a tax return which will be submitted later in the year around June and will be paid in the second half of 2023. According to the law that was passed, there's no additional, there's no relevant liability for 2023.
Do you have any view on how likely any such liability is to emerge with the new law later in the year? Has anything been said about the intention to extend the tax?
Nick, no, we don't have any additional information. What we know right now is the law that has passed a month ago. A month and a half ago.
Yeah. okay. thanks so much for that.
Okay. Well, clearly a number of issues that emerged from a very volatile and unpredictable environment in our industry and in Europe overall. I'll start with the last comment on solidarity contribution. Europe has opted to impose a pretty hefty solidarity contribution, which is taxation on the industry. The main bearers of this additional burden have been mainly refining and downstream companies, which are operating in Europe. They're not part of bigger groups which have a more substantial presence outside of Europe, either in upstream or in refining. That is something which has been reflected in our numbers.
It is something which clearly we don't feel we should be penalized for making investments and making increased profits. On the other hand, we do see the overall social issues that arose as a result of the energy crisis, mainly on the natural gas front and not on the liquid hydrocarbons. This is what we have to face. Going back to the beginning of the presentation, I would like to leave you with some very specific messages, which is a very strong performance for the year on the crisis management, on the switching of crude from Russia to other sources.
A very good performance on the part of the refineries in the Supply and Trading, which has helped us deliver a record result. That was backed up by very solid performance in all of our other businesses as well. We had good progress on the transformation. Clearly, the results are not due to the transformation and all of the initiatives that we had. It is good to know that all such initiatives have been rewarded with positive results, and are in the right direction, which will ensure that the company will be in a better position moving forward. Clearly, if margins continue to be strong, we will have another set of good results for 2023, and this is our going in hypothesis for the time being.
At the same time, we progressed on most of our strategic initiatives. We monetized the DEPA stake in the year, which was a material cash inflow. We cleared our strategy and progressed on that on the upstream. At the same time, we have made a lot of progress on the refineries performance on Scope 1 and potential Scope 3 initiatives that we can take. All in all, I would say a very good year, and that allows us to share that performance with our shareholders as well through a distribution of EUR 1.15 per share, including the interim dividends that were announced earlier in the year. Thank you very much for taking the time so late in the afternoon, on Friday afternoon to be with us.
We hope that we will have probably not an equally strong, but a good set of results to report at the end of the Q1 as well. Thank you.